


Torn Edges

by WhyNotFly



Series: The Aro Archives [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: I love this show you guys, Lonely!Martin, M/M, and also trauma based aromanticism, and it doesn't all get neatly wrapped up in a bow, aromantic Jon, canon divergence!!, in addition to non-trauma based aromanticism, internalized aro-phobia I suppose, it wasn't when I wrote it but I just realized canon is so happy, it's not inherently sad and I personally think the ending is uplifting but, sometimes you just can't be positive about being aro and that's okay, there's some heavy discussion of aro stuff and love in here, this fandom needs more aro jon anyway so I'm being the change I want to see in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-29 00:37:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21401278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly
Summary: “I don’t love you,” Martin said, and something in him ached.  Hehadloved Jon.  He knew he had.  He remembered it like a particularly fun grade school birthday party.  Distant, inaccessible, mostly made up to suit the narrative he’d built in his head.  A warmth that had bled so far out of him he couldn’t even picture what it had felt like.  “I can’t love you.  I don’t feel it anymore.”---Martin comes out of the lonely emptier than he went in.  But Jon has learned a thing or two over the years about not being capable of love.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: The Aro Archives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714381
Comments: 56
Kudos: 348
Collections: Aspec Martin Blackwood Week





	Torn Edges

“I can’t do this.” Martin put his chinese takeout container on the floor and wrapped his arms around his stomach.

“Oh,” said Jon. “That’s...that’s okay. We can try again later. There’s no rush.”

“No.” Martin dropped his head. “I mean I can’t _ever_ do this. I can’t date you, Jon.”

Slowly, Jon put aside his fried rice, taking a moment to make sure his fork would stay balanced leaned up against the edge and not clatter onto his floor. He wouldn’t want to make a mess. When he looked back up at Martin, their eyes didn’t meet.

“That’s alright.” Jon struggled to swallow around the tongue that felt too thick in his throat. “I understand. I’m not exactly a comforting presence in terms of your traumatic situation. Or in general.”

“No it’s not…” A bark of laughter broke ungracefully from Martin’s mouth, and his smile twisted like a cruel mockery of the face Jon remembered. “God I sound like an ass saying _it’s not you it’s me_ but it is. Me. My fault. I’m broken, Jon. The lonely broke me.”

“That’s not true.” Jon leaned forward and rested his hand on Martin’s knee. Martin looked down at it dispassionately, and nothing in him blushed or bubbled with excitement, he didn’t stammer or swallow or feel his heart flutter faster, he just looked at it.

“I don’t love you,” Martin said, and something in him ached. He _had_ loved Jon. He knew he had. He remembered it like a particularly fun grade school birthday party. Distant, inaccessible, mostly made up to suit the narrative he’d built in his head. A warmth that had bled so far out of him he couldn’t even picture what it had felt like. “I can’t love you. I don’t feel it anymore.”

Martin looked up at Jon to try and watch the moment his heart broke. He wanted it, that final straw where the last person in the world who cared about him finally gave up. Then he could be alone. Then he could stop feeling guilty.

Jon stared back, impassive, his dark eyes standing out hungry against his gaunt face. “What did it used to feel like? Love.”

Martin heaved an exhausted sigh. “I don’t know, Jon. Nice, I guess? It was like every time I looked at you I got a little dizzy, and I’d go out of my way to try and make you smile, and I’d lie awake at night fantasizing about kissing you, and if you looked at me a certain way my heart would, y’know, flutter, I suppose. I’d get red faced and tongue tied and unable to function.”

“Well that explains your work ethic for most of our early years together,” Jon grumbled.

“This isn’t a joke, Jon.”

“That all doesn’t sound very nice, you know.”

“What?” Martin shook his head, not sure if he was hearing Jon correctly. “Did you just say love doesn’t sound _nice?_”

Jon shrugged as if it was an obvious response. “It all sounds like a very inconvenient, embarrassing, and frankly exhausting way to live, in all honesty.”

“It’s what makes life worth living, Jon!” Martin threw his hands up in the air, beyond exasperated with the turn this conversation had taken. All he’d wanted to do was save Jon from pouring time and effort into the black hole of Martin’s heart. He hadn’t exactly expected an extended argument. “Poets and playwrights and every songwriter ever, basically. It’s what makes us human!”

“I tried out kissing with Georgie, back in the day. Deeply underwhelming experience. I don’t think I’ll ever lay awake at night fantasizing about doing _that_ again”

“_Jon._”

“Martin.”

“People have connections, Jon! People care about each other. That’s what society _is_. When I look at you, my stomach doesn’t twist into knots. When we’re apart, I don’t miss you. I’m not going to be able to give you back what you give me. You don’t deserve half of a person who only knows how to act because I’m going through...muscle memory.”

Jon frowned, tilting his chin in the way he did when he was deeply considering how to put his thoughts into words. Finally, he scooted to the side until he was leaning back against the wall and gestured Martin to join him. “Come here, Martin.”

Martin rolled his eyes but eventually dragged himself over to sit next to Jon. Jon leaned over and curled up on Martin’s chest, and Martin instinctually draped an arm around his shoulders to ease the position. He looked down at the top of Jon’s head, and nothing in his heart raced, and his back didn’t get sweaty with nerves, and his toe didn’t tap. He just looked down, and felt nothing.

“I’ve never loved anyone,” Jon said, and Martin felt his jaw moving with the words against his chest. “Not even you. I don’t think I’m capable of it.”

Martin said nothing, but his thumb stroked absently back and forth on Jon’s arm.

“I’ve never looked at you and tripped nervously over my words, or blushed, or felt my heart racing. I’ve never fantasized. But that last night, before the Unknowing, I let myself think for just a moment about what it might be like if we succeeded. If everything went right and we made it back home and got a chance to live our lives. And I decided then that I wanted you to be in that future. Because I enjoy being around you, and I like knowing that you’re happy, and you make me feel safe.”

“Isn’t that love?” Martin asked, quietly.

“I don’t know,” said Jon. “You tell me. You felt it, once.”

“I don’t know,” said Martin.

“That may be the most I can ever give you, Martin.” Jon shifted a bit, pressing the side of his face tight into Martin’s sternum. “But I decided that day that I wanted to, and I’ve decided it again every day since waking up from that coma, and I fought to get you back, and I’ll keep fighting. Because I’ve never regretted that decision.”

“But I _wanted_ it.” Martin’s voice cracked just the tiniest bit. “Love. I wanted it so badly. My whole life. I wanted to fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. I loved it, being in love with you. It was everything to me. I don’t want to never have that again. I don’t want to be incapable of it.”

Jon pushed himself off Martin, bracing one hand against his chest so his could meet Martin’s eyes. “Then do. Fall in love with me again. In our own way. Just decide you’re going to.”

“But it won’t be real.”

“Or maybe it’ll be more real. Because it won’t just be happenstance. It’ll be you and me, choosing to be happy against a universe that would sooner see us torn to shreds.” Jon pulled at Martin’s wrist until he relented and let Jon lift his hand and interlace their fingers. “After all this, I think we deserve to pick our own happy ending.”

Martin was sure that a younger him, a fuller him, would have perhaps been crying. Would have kissed Jon by now. Would have been laughing and sweeping him up in his arms. But instead he simply felt sanded down, like a torn edge folded under.

“Maybe this doesn’t make either of our hearts skip a beat,” Jon said, squeezing Martin’s hand tight, “but it does mean I’m here. I’m beside you. Because I want to be. Can’t that be enough?”

“I’ll try,” said Martin, and they both closed their eyes and pretended he’d said _I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading. I wrote this fic a while ago, and never posted it because it was just really personal and I almost felt like it'd be too self-indulgent for public consumption but my discord group encouraged me and I was really feeling the lack of aro!jon representation in fanfic so. Be the change you want to see, right?
> 
> I just really love these characters, and I really love this show, and being aro is really hard and terrible sometimes and it doesn't always feel like something you can talk about in this culture of pride and self love and all and yeah. Thanks for reading this, I hope someone identifies with it and appreciates that it exists. Cuz then it'll be good that I didn't let it just fester in my google docs forever.
> 
> As always, I'm on tumblr @apatheticbutterflies and I post writing and meta so come hit me up and talk about the magnus archives like whenever. Love u all <3


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